Is this a plothole? Question about the Endless

[Raven2014]

snip

If you ask me WHICH version of the Endless presentation I prefer, than Mechanical Otis is far superior than the zone 6 Endless. But like I said, his existence kinda just invalidate all the sentimental strings that zone 6 tried to pull. It would also a real condominium for us because it's much easier to make the argument that mechanical Otis is a actual life form and not just a memory.


Now, if I'm going out my limb to give the writers the benefit of the doubt, there is an alternative way to interpret the Endless that is consistent with both of what Cahcuia trying to say, as well as the intention of the last zone. And that is it's based on 3 school of thought:


- First: believe in the after life. Proper burial, ceremonies, rite ...etc... Because the belief is this is the duty of the living, we're doing this so the dead can have a good afterlife, we're doing this to honor "them". And this can get really extreme, I know (poor) families that would get into debt in order to have a proper burial. The Endless could be a reflection of this mindset.

- Second: dead is dead, keep them in memory but the living move on. There is no after life, and all the expensive expectation are just social construct designed to exploit the living - aka the Grief industry. And this correlate to the unsustainable in maintaining the illusion paradise for the Endless at great cost to the living.

- Third: a mixed of the first two. They don't necessary believe in the afterlife, but they don't outright dismiss things like rites and ceremonies either. The difference between the first and third is instead of believing you're doing things for the death, you're doing for the shake of the living. It's not about science, logic or rationality. Human are emotional creatures, and we need closure. It's ok to do something and give it meaning as a way to cope, even if it's probably meaningless. And I think this is the quest line in Zone 6 is about. On the surface the narrative framed it as we're doing for the Endless, to pay them one last homemade. But it could be we (the party) doing it for themselves, so we don't feel bad when we shut them down. Krile's encounter with her parents isn't about her parents, they're already dead, the illusion is not real. But Krile herself desperately needed that encounter to find peace and closure.


So if you decide to look at this way ... most of the story points come together pretty well with very little inconsistency and contradiction. It's actually ... good writing, abeit the message is hidden bit ... too well. The inconsistency is not really inconsistency, rather just illustration of different view points of how the living perceive the death. But alas I don't know whether this is real intention of the writers, or I'm just reading into it a bit too much. I'll be honest, it's kinda hard to accept it's the former case because then you have to wonder: if this is the level of writing the team actually is actually capable of ... then what the hell happened in the first 5 zones?!?!